Third challenge: Identifying what certain words refer to
Another common feature is the use of reference devices. Obviously, we find these in all texts, but because of the concise way newspaper texts are written, it can be particularly hard to follow the chain of reference. For example:
Bekily, 12, was watching Tegan McPhail photograph animals at London Zoo at feeding time. Perhaps inspired by Bradley Cooper's mega-selfie with fellow stars at the Oscars he decided he wanted to pose for one himself.
I think a lot of students would assume that the highlighted ‘he’ referred to Bradley Cooper, because he has just been mentioned (or even Tegan McPhail, mentioned in the previous sentence) when it actually refers right back to ‘Bekily’. To help students with this, we could ask them to underline the reference words and then draw arrows to what they refer to.
Fourth challenge: Idioms
And, as you will have noticed, there are also a lot of idioms, especially in the tabloids. With a short article like this one, you can ask students to underline any idioms they find (go viral, get in on the act, mega-selfie) and look them up. They could then try and rewrite the article (or a section of it) without any idioms, putting the original idioms in a list below. If the students have read different texts, they could then swap and ask their partner to try and rewrite the article using the list of idioms given.
Comprehension tasks
Either of these activities could be used with any news text, thus saving preparation time. But what about comprehension questions? Teachers often spend a lot of time thinking up exercises to exploit news articles. And, because they date, the material can rarely be used again.
One solution is to provide a generic task, such as the '5Ws' task outlined above. Other possibilities:
Ask learners to choose, say, no more than five sentences that seem to carry the main points of the article. This can then be checked by a peer (while you monitor).
Ask learners to rewrite a short article, changing some of the information to make it a lie (as outrageous as they wish. For example, Bekily might take photos of the keeper... A partner then reads it and spots the lies.
Ask learners to write their own headlines, and talk to decide on the best one (which will involve discussing the content of the text).”30
To answer the above research questions, it is necessary to select several students with the same degree from among the students on the academic list. To do this, a test run is conducted between them. based on the results, the same levels are formed as a group. The number of groups is three. They consist of high, intermediate and low level students.
The articles given to them will initially be articles on different topics at their level. Depending on the activity of answering the questions posed by the articles, the degree of relevance to them is determined.
Later, through this article, small measures will be prepared and the methods of their implementation will be followed. Some of the exercises aimed at forming different skills in English have been found to be more effective. Their impact on students at different levels is studied.
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